It’s hard not to just sit back and enjoy the newly uncluttered space in my house! Now all my sorting and packing has to be able to tidy up in about 15 minutes. The next step was to finish packing up my things at school and get them into storage. Oh, and the “official” check-out at school. That finally happened today! My son came and helped me get my 8 or 9 heavy boxes of books down the stairs, into my car, and into storage. I have to brag a little about getting my 20 years of accumulated teaching stuff down to 8-9 boxes! In all likelihood I could still pare down even further. Maybe when I UNpack. 🙂 I am encouraged by the space still left in storage, but it is hard to gauge the amount of stuff that still needs to go in.

Another big project that I got finished was going through all my photos and packing up a box to send off for scanning (http://www.scanmyphotos.com/). They will return the photos with a DVD that has them all digitally on it and I think I have most all of my photos in one place now. Whew!

Now I’m focused on getting my son ready for his month in China. He leaves next Monday. It will be so exciting for him. I will miss him. A lot. His sister will come visit for the weekend before he leaves. I love having the house full of my kids!

After that I hope to be more focused on getting rid of more of the furniture and clearing out certain rooms. I’m trying not to focus on all the good-byes and leave-takings though. That part is sad. 😦 Trying to celebrate the little accomplishments and focus on the exciting new adventure.

I have been working really hard at getting things stashed and stored so that my realtor could come take pictures. It finally happened today and the listing should be active as of tomorrow! I have butterflies in my stomach, but I think it is mostly from excitement! There is still lots to do, but showings could start happening soon. This will make for creative packing so that things can be stashed again for when people come through. I would say the thrift shop is getting the majority of my stuff and not always gladly. Yesterday, my dear friend, Jena helped lug stuff over there and when I told him I had two carloads he said, “You do not!” I assured him I did and it was all he could do not to roll his eyes and groan. 🙂

Meanwhile, I still have not checked out from school as I have boxes there too. I have one or two more to pack up from there and then I’ll have to turn in my keys. That brings a mixture of gladness and sadness. Many of the people I have worked with are like second family to me and I will miss seeing them on a regular basis. I am so excited for Kuwait and the adventures it promises though. I figure I’ll be back in this area and will be able to check in with these friends again.

Now I’m ready to take a little break from the strenuous prep for a few days. I think I’ll have some eye surgery. No joke, I’m having laser surgery today on my left eye. The right eye was last week. It is amazingly NOT traumatic. I can drive myself home afterwards. It is to repair a small tear in my retina, as was last week’s. So I’ll probably head in to school tomorrow to continue that project.

I am really regretting that I didn’t take pictures as I pulled boxes out of storage (hiding) spots and piled them up in the living room and family room to go through. I have made such enormous progress at reducing! I’m struggling to keep up with doing this very same thing at school as well. The one good fortune is that my students will happily take LOTS of the stuff from school home with them! I’m always surprised at what they pull out of the garbage or recycling. Hooray for “reuse!”

If the weather cooperates, we will try again for photos of the house (inside and out) on Monday (10th) and it should be listed on Tuesday! I really hope we will be able to get full price on it (I guess every seller wishes that).

For the most part I am trying to make it through the rest of this week. Last day of school is Friday, and we have a 2 hour early dismissal. I had hoped to be ready to leave on the 10th (workday), but I suspect I will be back in throughout the next week.

It is immensely empowering to be getting rid of so much stuff. Thanks to Jane, I got a jeep load ready for the thrift shop and thanks to Jena, I got enough boxes to deal with my overabundance of books! Thanks to Sharon, I got my pre-lit Christmas tree and two big boxes off to the thrift shop ( or perhaps, ebay?). Little by little.

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